Letter: Not your typical family with typical issues

To the Editor:

What if Barrack Obama’s vice presidential pick had stepped on the convention stage with a 17-year old, unwed daughter five months pregnant? Republican’s would be screaming, “More proof of the failed liberal polices of the Democrats!”

Instead, Republican John McCain’s VP selection, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, stepped into the national spotlight with the unwed, pregnant daughter.

McCain, who typically owns about nine houses typically averaging $1.5 million a house, is spinning Palin’s story as that of a typical American family facing typical family issues. With a population of 301 million people in the America, typically there is only one vice president of the United States.

McCain said “the media should respect Bristol’s (Palin) privacy…the children of candidates do not choose to run for office and be thrust into the spotlight.”

To prove he meant this, McCain flew Bristol’s boyfriend to the convention and thrust him into the spotlight. McCain knows how these things can hurt families. In 1998, he told the following “joke” at a Republican fundraiser: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly...Because her father is Janet Reno.”

Barrack Obama agreed with McCain about candidate family members being off limits. He told his supporters that candidates’ children are off-limits.

Watching Cindy and John McCain’s portion of GOP convention, I learned about McCain’s “code of honor.” I must have missed the part about McCain’s extramarital affair with Cindy (McCain) Hensley, a millionaire’s daughter, which led to McCain’s 1980 divorce from his first wife – the wife who raised his family while he was a POW developing his “code of honor.” Apparently, McCain forged his “code of honor” with large portions of situational ethics and hypocrisy.

Currently Republican spin-doctors are learning to dance in flip-flops. They are figuring out how to sell a presidential candidate running on a 35-year-old POW record and a vice presidential candidate who advocates abstinence and has an unwed, pregnant daughter to show what happens when abstinence fails.

Thank God for family values!

James P. Nelson

New Richmond

Tags: opinion, presidential, candidates, amily, values